Flyable hot gas manifolds require an internal insulation to prevent the high temperature, pressure, and enthalpy contained fluid from burning through the necessarily lightweight manifold walls. Several thermal protection systems have been tried in an effort to protect hot gas manifold for life of the mission. These systems range from the too heavy heat sink concept to the too soft and frangible cast in place ablating elastomers. The insertion of prefabricated, premachined, rigid sleeves results in various seams between the sleeves at all joints particularly at intersections such as tees and elbows. It is at these seams where a discontinuity in the material exist and where the fluid is subject to maximum turbulence, usually caused by changing its direction of flow, that mission shortening burn-throughs occur.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a seamless liner that is continuous-fiber reinforced so that it will not spald, flake or otherwise produce downstream valve jamming debris and still survive the mission without burn-through problems.
Another object of this invention is to provide a knitted inorganic fiber resin impregnated sleeve fabricated as a continuous unseamed configured detail, installed, and then cured in place.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a knitted or woven sleeve that is lightweight, is seamless, is reinforced with continuous full depth fibers, and a sleeve which requires no pre or post installation machining or exotic installation techniques.
A still further object of this invention is to provide an insulating device that can be used to insulate both cold to cryogenic fluid systems as well as hot gases.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a knitted sleeve which allows configuring the sleeve economically to any shape desired.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a sleeve that has a biaxial stretch that permits it to intimately contact all surfaces without distortion when it is installed in slightly mismatching channels.
Other objects and advantages of this invention will be obvious to those skilled in this art.